Monthly Archives: June 2017

Following David Ben-Gurion’s specific instructions, it was once forbidden to even mention the names of the Mossad and the Shin Bet. Today, Israel’s intelligence agencies have no choice but to do what a decade ago was considered unthinkable: a highly-publicized recruitment campaign in their name – full of color, voices, and gimmicks—in an effort to emphasize the advantages only Israel’s domestic Shin Bet and international intelligence organization Mossad can offer—a sense of purpose, membership to a small and intimate family of secret keepers and plenty of action.

The Mossad has pulled out all of it’s marketing and branding power to recruit the best and most creative minds to create and enhance their use of cyber and hi-tech. The Mossad is not only inviting the best of the best to join their ranks, they are now making it highly profitable.

Mossad Director Yossi Cohen, at the launch event for the Mossad Libertad Fund, made the following remarks:

“The Mossad fund for technology and innovation, Libertad, will find its place between the covert Mossad and the open world of technology.”

Cohen continued: “Through Libertad we want to connect to you – market leaders, entrepreneurs, companies, industries and research institutes. Libertad will provide the Mossad with a strong, direct and productive link with technological brain trusts and leading pioneers here in Israel in designing tomorrow. We have established the fund to support freedom of operation by visionary entrepreneurs who are working to realize their dream and will enable us to use their developments in implementing our national mission.”

Cohen concluded: “The Mossad will do its part by financing research and development and, in exchange, will receive technology for its needs. I am proud of the Mossad’s innovation.”

New York, New York — June 23, 2017 … Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon has presented a letter to the President of the UN Security Council H.E. Sacha Sergio Llorenty Soliz and to the UN Secretary General, demanding a strong and appropriate response to Hezbollah’s ongoing military buildup using the cover of civilian activities in southern Lebanon, in clear violation of UNSC resolutions 1701 and 1559.

“Excellency,

I am writing to alert you once again of the dangerous and destabilizing actions of the Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, in our region.”

“Hezbollah, an internationally designated terrorist organization, continues to unabatedly strengthen its military infrastructure in the villages of southern Lebanon, in clear violation of Security Council resolutions 1701 and 1559. Evidence of Hezbollah’s unremitting violations mounts by the day and cannot be overlooked.”

“The international community cannot continue to turn a blind eye to Hezbollah’s flagrant violations of UNSC resolutions 1701 and 1559.”

“Over the past few months, Hezbollah established observation posts near the Blue Line, mainly in the western section of the region (see attached in appendices 1-2 exact coordinates of the posts and a picture of a post).”

“These posts were erected under the guise of an agricultural NGO known as “Green Without Borders,” the activities of which are defined and at times funded by Hezbollah.

The well-documented proof of Hezbollah’s dangerous provocation verifies that Hezbollah conducts reconnaissance activity near the Blue Line and disguises it as civilian activity, in clear violation of UNSC resolutions 1701 and 1559.”

“Last April, a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol was denied access by a group of locals to an observation post flying the “Green Without Borders” flag.”

“Such obstructions to UNIFIL’s operations in the area are unacceptable. These impediments prevent UNIFIL from fully executing its mandate to monitor the implementation of UNSC resolutions and maintain stability in the area.

Hezbollah’s continued military buildup and destabilizing activities in southern Lebanon have serious repercussions on both regional stability and the ability of the Lebanese government to effectively control its country.”

“The United Nations, the international community cannot continue to turn a blind eye to Hezbollah’s flagrant violations of UNSC resolutions 1701 and 1559.”

“I call on the UN Security Council to demand that the government of Lebanon dismantle these observation posts immediately, and prevent any future activity of Hezbollah and its affiliates in southern Lebanon, particularly near the Blue Line. It is imperative that the council sends a strong message to the Government of Lebanon and demand that it fully implement UNSC resolutions 1701 and 1559, not only in words, but in clear and concrete actions.”

I should be grateful if you would have this letter distributed as an official document of the Security Council. I wish to inform you that an identical letter has been sent to H.E. Mr. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Please accept, Excellency, the assurance of my highest consideration.

Sincerely,
Danny Danon
Ambassador
Permanent Representative”

Hezbollah, also known as The Party of God, is an international Shi’a Muslim terrorist group fighting against Israel and “western imperialism” in Lebanon. The Iranian backed group does not recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel and it has been labeled as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department since October 1997.

The US Department of Justice recently announced the arrest of two Hezbollah men, one in New York and another in Michigan, for allegedly plotting attacks in New York and the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Panama.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Mayor of Thessaloniki Yannis Boutaris and the president of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki David Saltiel attend the presentation of a memorial plaque at the Museum of the Holocaust in Thessaloniki
(AFP PHOTO)

By Joel LeydenIsrael News Agency

Jerusalem, Israel — June 16, 2017 … Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, visited a Thessaloniki synagogue in Greece together with Jewish community President David Shaltiel, Thessaloniki Rabbi Yisrael Aharon, Mayor Yiannis Boutaris and Jewish community leaders.

Prime Minister Netanyahu made the following remarks:

“My wife and I are delighted to be here, along with our ministers of the Israeli government and our entire delegation. We bring you greetings from Jerusalem.

Shalom m’Yerushalayim.

This is very moving to be here in this architectural gem, but more than being a beautiful building, it’s evocative of the great history and the great tragedy that befell the Jews of Greece.

I have to say that I’m a historian’s son, so I know a little about the history of the Jews of Greece, and when you think about it, the history of the Greek-Jewish community, and specifically that history anchored in Thessaloniki, withstood three of the greatest tragedies that befell our people. First, the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. This community absorbed Jews who left Judea. And second, the Great Expulsion from Spain. This community absorbed Jews who were expelled from Spain. And third, and the greatest destruction of all, is of course the Nazi Holocaust.”

Netanyahu continued: “The fire in 1917 destroyed buildings and burned buildings; the Nazi fire burned people, and 97 percent were destroyed. Three percent survived. These survivors, many of them, now live in Israel, and I have to say that they have a love and a remembrance of Thessaloniki that is unmatched. They speak about it, they write about it, they – in many ways they remember it as a great center of culture, but also as a personal memory that is exemplified by one of the survivors who – Moshe Ha-Elion – who raised the torch of remembrance in our Day of Remembrance for the Nazi Holocaust. We light three torches of remembrance, and he was one of these six, and movingly spoke about how he survived. His entire family was wiped out.

So, I met him right after the ceremony. My wife and I met him, and we said, ‘Please come with us to Thessaloniki so that you can close this circle in your life and the life of our people.’ And he fell ill a day before we left for Greece. He asked the doctor, he begged the doctor, ‘Please let me come.’ And the doctor said, ‘No, you cannot come.’ And so I asked his daughter, who is here with us, Rachel, and his son – stand up, stand up. Rachel and Eliyahu. They are the children of Moshe Ha-Elion and they continue the line of Thessaloniki Jews in Israel, but they are back here in Thessaloniki.

I think this is a testament to the rebirth of our people, which is exemplified in Israel and is a consequence also in many places in the Diaspora.

We have rebuilt our people from ashes, and we built a modern state. We came back to our ancestral homeland. We built a country. We built an army – a good one. We built an economy – a very good one. And we rebuilt and took our place among the nations. Among the nations, Israel and Greece have re-forged an alliance. It’s a natural alliance of democracies. Israel, Greece, Cyprus are the three real democracies in the Eastern Mediterranean. And we have forged this friendship anew and we see all the benefits that accrue to it.

I’m very grateful to Prime Minister Tsipras for hosting this trilateral meeting.”

Netanyahu concluded: “We are strengthening our ties every day. But I think the most interesting thing is the rebirth of the Jewish people and the way that Israel has become a global force – a global force in technology, a global force in fighting the terrorism that threatens all of us, a global force in medicine, in agriculture, in energy, a global force for the future.

It’s a tremendous pleasure to come here and to rekindle that spirit and to say one simple thing, and I think I can say this in this synagogue as best as I can say it in any place on Earth – and that statement is this, three simple words: Am Israel Chai.

Jerusalem, Israel — June 12, 2017 … The Israel Defense Forces informed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the main UN aid agency in Gaza, that it had discovered part of a terror tunnel running under two of its schools in a refugee camp in the enclave.

UNRWA then condemned the existence of tunnels which were created for Hamas terror activities saying that it “objected in the strongest possible terms. It is unacceptable that students and staff are placed at risk in such a way,” a written statement said.

A Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum responded and denied the tunnel belonged to his or any other Gaza terror group. The IDF then sarcastically questioned if the tunnels were built by Disney World as a future entertainment feature or was created by the good citizens of Gaza to implement advanced irrigation systems.

Responding to the discovery, Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories accused Hamas of “ruining Gaza.”

“It’s clear as day that the entire Arab world has realized that the Hamas terror organization is the one ruining Gaza and destroying Gazans’ chance for a better future,” IDF Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said on COGAT’s Arabic language Facebook page. “Perhaps the time has come for the residents of Gaza to realize this for themselves.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting responded to Hamas Jihadi terror tunnels that were created to carry weapons and bombs into civilian communities in Israel:

“A Hamas tunnel has recently been discovered under two schools in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is using schoolchildren as human shields and this is the enemy that we have been fighting against for many years, an enemy that is committing a twofold war crime.”

“On the one hand, it first attacks innocent Israeli civilians and then hides behind Palestinian children. On Friday I instructed the Israel Foreign Ministry Director General to file an official protest against the Jihadist terror group Hamas at the UN Security Council.

Last week I met with US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. I thanked her, on your behalf as well, for her sharp words in favor of the State of Israel and against the anti-Israel obsession at the UN. I told her that the time has come for the UN to reconsider the continued existence on UNRWA.”

Netanyahu added: “Since World War Two, there have been – and continue to be today – millions of refugees. And these millions have the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), while most of the Palestinian refugees are settled and have a separate commission. This is UNRWA; it has its own institutions and considerable incitement against Israel. I regret that UNRWA, to a large degree, by its very existence, perpetuates – and does not solve – the Palestinian refugee problem. Therefore, the time has come to disband UNRWA and integrate it into the UNHCR.”

UNRWA was caught last week using a photo twice of a Palestinian child living in Syria, this time in its fund-raising campaign for Gaza.

The double use of the photograph was discovered by the Geneva based group UN Watch, whose executive director Hillel Neuer posted both pictures on Twitter with the caption: “Left: UNRWA photo, Jan.27, 2015, of girl in Syria. Right: Same UNRWA photo, May 29, 2017, but now she’s ‘Aya from Gaza’ oppressed by Israel.”

Israel removed all of its civilians and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 in return for a peace agreement. Since 2005, Hamas has attacked Israel with hundreds of mortars and missiles claiming that all of Israel was to be destroyed.

Los Angeles — June 11, 2017 … Bomb threats against Jewish facilities in the US continue as three Los Angeles synagogues were evacuated following a series of online bomb threats. The hate crimes disrupted normally scheduled Shabbat activities on June 10.

The Glazer and Irmas campuses of Wilshire Boulevard Temple as well as University Synagogue in Brentwood were closed shortly after 8 a.m., according to Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). By about 12:45 p.m., LAPD cleared all locations to reopen.

“K9 units responded to the locations to make sure to render all locations safe,” an LAPD spokesperson said. “At this time we have no credible threats.”

Local police and the FBI recently closed a case against an 18-year-old dual American Israeli living in Ashkelon, Israel who was arrested in March under suspicion of being responsible for a series of bomb and other threats to Jewish communities in the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand that date back around six months.

Hisparents claim their son has mental issues suffering from severe autism and a brain tumor that affects his behavior, which led him to issue the threats. A gag order in Israel has been placed on the identity of the suspect.

In March, a St. Louis man, Juan Thompson, was arrested and appeared in federal court on a cyberstalking charge. Thompson, 32, who originally denied the charges in New York City federal court in April has now pleaded guilty to threatening eight JCC facilities. Prosecutors said in a letter filed on Tuesday with the court said that Thompson will enter a guilty plea when he appears in court on June 12.

Federal officials had been investigating over 120 bomb threats called in to Jewish organizations in three dozen states since January 9 and a rash of vandalism at Jewish cemeteries.

Rabbi Morley T. Feinstein of University Synagogue in LA said a staff member “found an email that was beyond nasty — horrific language, and threatening” in a temple email account and its executive director, Lisabeth Lobenthal, called the police.

About 10 police officers answered the call.

Don Levy, the director of marketing and communications at Wilshire Boulevard Temple, said a threat came in Saturday morning via an online submission form on the synagogue’s website. LAPD was notified immediately and the synagogue’s campuses were shut down. Levy said no one was at either the synagogue’s Irmas Campus in West L.A. or its flagship Koreatown building, the Glazer Campus, at the time the threats were made.

“While a communication like that can come in through something as innocuous as an online submission form, we take them all seriously,” he said. “We take any threat seriously and investigate it thoroughly to protect everybody’s safety.”

LAPD urged Jewish communities to exercise vigilance.

“We just want to remind the community to be aware of their surroundings. If they see something, say something.”

ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt‏ stated that the “ADL was standing with​ the Los Angeles Jewish community after the bomb threats defiled Shabbat, reminding us that challenges persist.”

New York’s Empire State building is lit up in blue and white in honor of Israel’s 69th birthday and 50 years of the reunification of Jerusalem.

By Joel LeydenIsrael News Agency

New York, NY — June 3, 2017 … The Celebrate Israel Parade, the world’s largest Jewish event, will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on New York’s 5th Avenue.

The gala parade will consist of 40,000 marchers from more than 250 organizations, hundreds of thousands of spectators, 15 world-class marching bands and more than 30 floats.

Dignitaries will include: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo; New York Mayor Bill de Blasio; New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli; New York City Public Advocate Letitia James; New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer; City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Members of the City Council; U.S. Representatives, Carolyn Maloney, Jerrold Nadler, and Kathleen Rice; Senators Leroy Comrie and John Flanagan; Consul General of Israel in New York Ambassador Dani Dayan; Permanent Representative to the United Nations Danny Danon; Israeli Knesset Members Avi Dichter (Likud), Dr. Anat Berko (Likud), Eyal Ben-Reuven (Zionist Camp), Ofer Shelah (Yesh Atid), Yoav Kisch (Likud), Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid), David Bitan (Likud) and Stav Shafir, (Zionist Camp).

Also marching in this year’s parade will be members of the Maccabi USA team set to compete in the 20th World Maccabiah Games in July who will also be joined by US swimming gold medalist Lenny Krayzelburg and Israeli judoka bronze medalist Arik Ze’evi.

In honor of the Celebrate Israel Parade and the state of Israel, the Empire State Building will shine its world-famous tower lights blue and white on Saturday, June 3.

Security will be extensive with thousands of NYPD uniformed and plain clothes officers and members of Israel’s elite security forces patrolling the event.

This year, Maimonides Medical Center is the Celebrate Israel Parade’s Official Television Broadcast Partner. The parade is produced in partnership with the UJA-Federation of New York and the State of Israel.

Jerusalem, Israel — June 1, 2017 … President Trump, who promised both Jews and Christians that he would move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, signed a waiver today preventing the embassy from moving to Jerusalem.

Trump’s refusal to move the embassy to Jerusalem now fits the narrative of the United Nations and Jihadist’s groups that Jews have no ties to Jerusalem. As such, Islamic terrorists can now look to Trump for yet another excuse to attack Jews in Israel.

The US Congress created the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 ordering the US embassy to move to Jerusalem but the President has the option of signing a waiver every six months.

Trump made his announcement of not moving the embassy on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot when almost every Jewish organization is closed and cannot comment.

Prime Minister Netanyahu did comment from his office in Jerusalem today following Trump’s broken campaign promise.

“Israel’s consistent position is that the American embassy, like the embassies of all countries with whom we have diplomatic relations, should be in Jerusalem, our eternal capital,” said Netanyahu.

“Maintaining embassies outside the capital drives peace further away by helping keep alive the Palestinian fantasy that the Jewish people and the Jewish state have no connection to Jerusalem.”

“Israel is disappointed that the embassy will not move at this time.”

Trump’s excuse, distributed in a press statement from the White House, for not moving the embassy to Jerusalem is meant to “maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, fulfilling his solemn obligation to defend America’s national security interests.”

Trump does not realize that peace between Israelis and Israeli Arabs will never be reached as long as Iran hold guns to the heads of Palestinians. Iran’s proxies – Hezbollah and Hamas have sworn themselves to the total destruction of the Jewish state.

“Trump has just encouraged terrorism against Jews in Israel,” said a high ranking security source in Jerusalem. “Islamic terrorists look to Iran, Qatar, the UN and ISIS to discredit and murder Jews. Trump’s actions today just gave these terrorists yet another reason to build bombs, shoot at and plunge knives into Jews who live in Jerusalem. This was not a step towards peace but rather creates greater alienation and hate. Trump has just reinforced the UN narrative that Jews have no ties to the Western Wall, no relationship to Jerusalem.”